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Sebastian Vettel remained the man to beat with the quickest time on day two of F1 testing at Catalunya,

Having set the fastest time on the opening day at the wheel of Red Bull?s new RB7, Vettel set the benchmark again late in the morning as the team worked on race weekend simulation.

The only issue came when the race simulation during the afternoon was hit by red flags and a heat shield issue but head of engineering Ian Morgan was pleased to once again see the RB7 leading the way.

?Generally it was good today and we got through almost everything we wanted to,? he said. ?We had a few small problems, such as an issue with a heat shield. But that?s why we do these tests, to iron out any little problems, and generally the simulations went well.

?The weather is forecast to deteriorate a bit overnight, which may make it difficult to run the simulations, but hopefully we can do the same simulations with Mark that we did with Seb today.?

To view times from the second day of testing in Barcelona, CLICK HERE.

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Sebastian Vettel continued to occupy the position at the top of the times in Valencia as the second day of pre-season testing hit its half-way mark on Wednesday.

Renault’s Robert Kubica and Force India’s Paul di Resta had both had spells at the top of the times on an initially very chilly morning in eastern Spain, before Vettel – spending his second day in the new Red Bull RB7 – went fastest in the day’s second hour on his eighth hot lap.

His best time of 1m13.614s was already just over a tenth of a second faster than his benchmark time from the first day, and by 1pm the world champion had chalked up 40 laps to add to the 93 trouble-free ones he completed on Tuesday.

Fernando Alonso was up in second in the new Ferrari, five tenths of a second back after 38 laps, with di Resta third in the 2010 Force India and Kubica ending his first morning in the innovative Renault R31 fourth, with 40 laps.

Lewis Hamilton is making his sole appearance of the week on Wednesday to get his first taste of the Pirelli tyres to be used this year, after McLaren decided not to use its race drivers in the post-season Abu Dhabi tyre test last November.

After a lengthy gap after a early installation lap, the 2008 champion eased himself back into driving duties and by lunchtime had completed 26 laps and occupied fifth place.

Mercedes’s opening day programme for the W02 had been restricted by a hydraulics problem during Nico Rosberg’s morning run on Tuesday so the German team and driver would have been pleased to have racked up 34 laps by 1pm on day two.

The team was also trying out the German manufacturer's renowned KERS system for the first time, having not used it on the opening day while it carried out other checks.

Team Lotus, meanwhile, was debuting its new T128 and, while Heikki Kovalainen had failed to post a lap time by lunchtime, the team’s Twitter updates suggested early work was going well, the Finn having done five exploratory laps during a programme of system checks and car alterations.

There had been two red flags by 1pm, the first of which was caused after half an hour by Rubens Barrichello, whose new Williams FW33 stopped out on track with an electrical problem.

13.30 update: Alonso has since jumped ahead of Vettel at the head of the times, the Spaniard’s new benchmark standing at 1m13.469s.

Valencia test day two times @ 13.00 

1  VETTEL      Red Bull     1m13.614s (40)

2  ALONSO      Ferrari      1m14.111s (38)

3  DI RESTA    Force India* 1m14.199s (33)

4  KUBICA      Renault      1m14.412s (40)

5  HAMILTON    McLaren*     1m14.701s (26)

6  ROSBERG     Mercedes     1m15.383s (34)

7  ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso   1m16.474s (60)

8  PEREZ       Sauber       1m17.019s (25)
9  GLOCK       Virgin*      1m17.228s (15)

10 BARRICHELLO Williams     1m17.344s (36)

11 KARTHIKEYAN HRT*         1m17.823s (29)

12 KOVALAINEN  Lotus        no times  (5)

laps completed in brackets

* 2010 car

MPUADHOLDER>


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{ Sebastian Vettel?admitted he was frustrated by a lack of track of time despite setting the pace on the opening day of F1 testing at Catalunya.

The?Red Bull?driver suffered a number of minor trips off track in the damp conditions that greeted teams during the morning, which led to the team carrying out a number of precautionary checks as a result.

Those checks took longer than expected which in turn meant Vettel was unable to return to the track until the closing moments of the session although he was still able to set the quickest time of the day with a late lap knocking?Fernando Alonso?off top spot.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t complete many laps today, as we had a long break – longer than expected,” he said.

“It wasn’t anything big, nothing broke, but at the test if you think there might be a problem then you’d rather take the car apart and check.

“The boys did their best and we still got some runs towards the end of the day – not as much as we’d like, but the car feels good and hopefully we’ll do more tomorrow.”

Head of race engineering Ian Morgan agreed with Vettel that it was frustrating to have lost time on track.

“It was frustrating today, as we lost some time making checks to the car during lunch,” he said. “It’s what testing is for, but we would have liked to complete more laps today.”

Crash.net / Eurosport


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